There's a new wave of plastic filling the middle ground between credit cards and debit cards: refillable cards -- or prepaid cards -- that act like a hybrid of both. They're an attractive option for consumers -- and a convenient way for banks to sidestep recent consumer protection laws.

Reloadable prepaid cards, which work like debit cards without a bank account, have been growing in popularity. But prepaid cards are riskier than you'd realize, and most come with between 7 and 15 fees - many of which aren't disclosed - reveals a new study from a nonpartisan think tank.

Practically nobody ever reads the disclosures that came with a bank account, and that's no surprise -- they average 111 pages long. That's way too much fine print, say Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who are calling on banks to cut those disclosures down to just one easy-to-comprehend page.

How many Americans have been out of work for more than a year? Around 4.4 million -- about the same as the population of Louisiana. And a disproportionate percentage of those long-term unemployed workers are 55 and older.

More people in Southeast don't have bank accounts than in any other part of the country. The state of Mississippi leads the country with more than 16% of households using cash-and-carry for all their transactions. That's a situation that can keep families from climbing the ladder of success.